Provo Canyon School

Provo Canyon School (PCS) is a psychiatric youth residential treatment center owned and operated by Universal Health Services (UHS). According to PCS's website, the school uses an “Acuity Based Care” (ABC) model that identifies and re-assesses the strengths and needs of its students. The site also asserts students receive a wide range of interventions including recreational and occupational therapies; individual, group, and art therapies; and substance abuse therapy.[7]

Provo Canyon School
Address
  • Boy's campus: 4501 North University Ave, Provo, Utah 84604
  • Girl's campus: 763 North 1650 West, Springville, Utah 84663-5066

North central Utah

Utah county

United States
Information
Funding typePrivate
Religious affiliation(s)Nonsectarian
Founded1971
StatusOpen
AdministratorDave Campbell (girls campus)
Grades3 to 12
GenderMales and females
Age8 to 17
Enrollment
  • ~97 (boys campus)[1][2]
  • ~98 (girls campus)[3]
Capacity225 (combined)
Student to teacher ratio
  • ~8:1 (boys campus)[4][5]
  • ~6:1 (girls campus)[6]
LanguageEnglish
Schedule typeDaily bell class rotation
ScheduleMonday through Friday
Hours in school day5.5
Campuses2
Campus typeRural
AccreditationsThe Joint Commission, The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and Cognia:
Websitehttps://provocanyon.com

Charter Behavioral Health Systems owned and operated PCS until it sold to UHS in 2000.[8]

Accusations of abuse

Since its inception, the school has been subject to a large number of individual and class-action lawsuits, particularly throughout the 1980s and 1990s. These lawsuits ranged from verbal, physical, and sexual abuse and medical negligence, to violating students' First Amendment rights and invasion of privacy, to false imprisonment and battery, to intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy, and loss of parental consortium.[9]

In September 2020, Paris Hilton premiered her YouTube Originals documentary This Is Paris, in which she attributes her chronic insomnia to the PTSD she developed when she spent eleven months at PCS in the late 1990s. She explains how the staff physically and psychologically abused her[10] and the other students. Some of the instances she details include how she and the other students were drugged with unknown medications, how she was dragged from her bed at home by two employees sent to retrieve her and bring her to the facility, and how she was stripped nude and locked into a brick solitary confinement cell for nearly twenty-four hours. She defines PCS as "the worst of the worst" of all troubled youth facilities.[11][12]

Kat Von D alleged her parents sent her to the school for a three-week program, but she was ultimately there for six months. She witnessed people being force-fed medications, sedated, and isolated. Von D said that she left with "major PTSD and other traumas due to the unregulated, unethical and abusive protocols of this 'school'" and wrote that she couldn't "call them schools because they're not schools they're fucking lockdown facilities". Von D said that she was "spared of the sexual abuse and the physical abuse" but "definitely saw" it happen.[13][14]

On October 9, 2020, Hilton and a group of friends who attended PCS with her led a silent protest with hundreds of other troubled teen industry survivors through the streets and neighborhoods of Provo, Utah to bring awareness to the school and industry in general.[15]

References
  1. https://www.privateschoolreview.com/provo-canyon-school-provo-campus-profile
  2. https://www.niche.com/k12/provo-canyon-school---provo-campus-provo-ut/
  3. https://www.niche.com/k12/provo-canyon-school---orem-campus-springville-ut/
  4. https://www.privateschoolreview.com/provo-canyon-school-provo-campus-profile
  5. https://www.niche.com/k12/provo-canyon-school---provo-campus-provo-ut/
  6. https://www.niche.com/k12/provo-canyon-school---orem-campus-springville-ut/
  7. https://provocanyon.com
  8. Louise Story, A Business Built on the Troubles of Teenagers, The New York Times, August 17, 2005
  9. The Cases Against Provo Canyon School, HEAL Online
  10. https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2020/12/10/paris-hilton-fighting-abuse-provo-canyon-school-this-is-paris/6475425002/
  11. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/paris-hilton-breaks-silence-over-181843249.html
  12. Amy Kaufman, Surviving abuse bonded Paris Hilton and these four women for life, Los Angeles Times, 9/25/20
  13. Ushe, Naledi (2020-10-06). "Kat Von D says she went to same 'tortuous' boarding school as Paris Hilton, suffered 'major PTSD'". Fox News. Retrieved 2020-10-06.
  14. "Kat Von D on Instagram: "Thank you, @parishilton for giving me the courage to share about being locked up for half a year, without ever seeing the sun, at Provo..."". Instagram. Retrieved 2020-10-06.
  15. Corinthios, Aurelie (October 9, 2020). "Paris Hilton Planning Peaceful Protest of Utah School with Survivors of Alleged Abuse". People. Retrieved October 11, 2020.

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